This invention relates to electronic devices and operating methods and computer program products therefor and, more particularly, to content players and operating methods and computer program products therefor.
Content players are widely used to play content from various sources. As used herein, the term “content” includes multimedia (i.e., audio, static images and/or video) content, such as movies, television programs, sound recordings, Web pages, photographs and/or images of newspapers, books, magazines, etc. Content players may be portable, transportable or fixed in location, and may be dedicated or multipurpose devices. Content players may include televisions, home theater systems, set top boxes, desktop computers, notebook computers and wireless devices, such as cell phones and/or personal digital assistants. Content players may play back content that is received wirelessly and/or over wired networks, such as cable networks or the Internet, and/or may play back content that was stored in a content storage device, such as a DVD player and/or a digital video recorder. Moreover, the functionality of a content player and a content storage device may be integrated at least in part.
In modern society, users are increasingly interested in playing content from many different sources on many different content players at various geographic locations. Some of this content may be “live”, i.e., content that is played simultaneous with its broadcast. Examples of live content may include current news broadcasts, current television programs or current sporting events. Other content may be classified as “previously published” content, in that the content was created and distributed (broadcast) earlier, stored and then played back at a later time. Examples of previously published content include broadcast television programs that are recorded in a digital video recorder and played back later, rebroadcasts of old news broadcasts, old television programs or old sporting events, podcasts and/or playing of old movies that were previously shown in theaters and are presently distributed using DVDs and/or other distribution media.